Hello from Orange County! We are new to the chicken scene and picked up chicks from The Wagon Train in Orange about 6 weeks ago. Put the chicks outside in the coop at 3.5 weeks when it seemed most of the rain has passed... although forecasts say more rain this week. Crazy.
Anyhoo just wanted to start on my local thread and say hello!! Trying to fight chicken math since we're only zoned for 4 hens. The temptation to sneak another 1-2 is terrible, esp since my daughter really wants a silkie. LOL
Here are my 4 (hopefully) girls from last weekend (3 EEs and a Welsumer):
Boy are they in the awkward teenage phase right now!
Thank you for mentioning wagon train!! I had never heard of it and we are now considering placing an order and making the trip out there next month once our coop/run is all done.
Ok here he is...really leaning towards cockerel. I've had him/her for 3 weeks. I was told the chick was 2 weeks old when we got it, but it already had a lot of grown up feathers coming in and very little fluff...maybe was older than 2 weeks?
I'm a bit north of all of you, Ventura county. I did live in Vista for a while - worked in Carlsbad. I currently have a pile of 4 silkies sitting in one box, on 10 eggs. They started with 12, but kicked out 2. I started with 7 broodies, but 3 decided they didn't want to stick it out. I gave my silkies individual boxes, and they hate them. These girls started brooding outside of the boxes entirely. I can't wait to see how they deal with the chicks.
I've seen up to 3 bantams (other breeds) that sat together on a clutch of eggs. I've seen 3 bantam Dominiques share hatching and rearing of the chicks together, but never 4 Silkies. This will be interesting to see if the chicks don't get smothered by all that love LOL! There's no guarantee all 10 eggs will hatch either or that all chicks survive. But that's ok -- baby chicks are very demanding and need 3 mommas! I mean, FOUR mommas!
Hhhhmmmm, I'm thinking of getting an Easter Egger rooster or a buff orpington. We could add more hens to the flock, but 6 seems more manageable right now. Plus, I'm worried about chicken math....lol. I'd rather start small and add later as we become more familiar with other breeds. If the rooster ends up being too much I'll try to find a home for him. Plenty of chicken people around here, I just don't know them personally. I hope it works out well.
I grew up on a farm, so here in the city I started with two chickens first. Later added some dual purpose and layer breeds and found them too aggressive for the first two gentle birds, so we had to re-home all the aggressive hens. Now we are down to two gentle Silkie hens, and two docile Breda. No more dual purpose flock divas for us! We lost a gentle Blue Wheaten Ameraucana but EEs and Amer's can't take our hot, sometimes humid, SoCal summer heatwaves so I won't get any more heavily under-downed breeds.
Two gentle Silkies (handle summer surprisingly well) and docile Cuckoo Breda pullet (another Blue Breda is on order for this Spring) to soon make it 4 birds.
